The 2chan.us blog (formerly welcome datacomp) wrote a quick post about the reopening of the pedestrian mall (hokoten, a colloquial abbreviation for 歩行者天国) in Akihabara, saying, “I find it slightly absurd that no English blog reported on this,” so I took that as a challenge to finally get something of substance up on the blog. Not much of the ideas presented below are my own: instead, this post represents a synthesis of a lot of the theoretical analysis about Akihabara with recent social and cultural developments. Perhaps the best resource in English is Patrick Galbraith’s recent article in Mechademia 5: Fanthropologies, “Akihabara: Conditioning a Public “Otaku” Image” (p. 210 – 230). This essay builds off of Galbraith’s foundations in response to the reopening of Akihabara Hokoten.

Akihabara has always been discussed as the “otaku mecca,” but not many speak of its importance as part of “the city.” The most relevant scholar to tackle this topic is Kaichiro Morikawa, famous for his book, 趣都の誕生 萌える都市アキハバラ (also known as “Learning from Akihabara: The Birth of a Personapolis”). His argument basically follows that the power of otaku desires have made them manifest in public space. This is an interesting concept, because no where else in the world has subculture or media impacted the physical space so much compared to Akihabara. A side-note, though: Morikawa notes in an updated edition of his text that due to Akihabara’s fame, it has attracted the media and politics, pushing out real, authentic otaku in favor of those who wish to perform “otaku-ness,” boosting the district’s image as otaku mecca (Galbraith 212).

Akihabara is known as the Electric Town of Tokyo: the technical capital of the city, where you can buy spare mechanical parts in addition to the latest computers, games, and electronics. The growth of Akihabara as an otaku-centric locale occurred after the economic bubble popped in Japan in the late ’80s, which the otaku’s conspicuous consumption survived. Otaku consumption within Akihabara steadily grew throughout the late ’90s, creating the “otaku mecca” as it stands today, teeming with anime-related media stores and speckled with maid cafes.

I won’t get into the cultural politics over the image of the otaku from the ’80s (Akio Nakamori and Tsutomu Miyazaki) through today, since I’ve talked about it in various anime con panels and Galbraith does an excellent job covering that ground in his article. Instead, we’ll work off the some generalist assumptions about Akihabara, namely that 1) otaku became a buzzword in the early ’00s after much negative media throughout the ’90s (negativity displaced in part due to media about otaku and politics directed toward them), 2) Akihabara’s image as a popular destination for foreign travelers solidified also in the early ’00s, and 3) the live population of visitors to Akihabara via the pedestrian mall, where streets were closed down to allow performers and extra pedestrians, fueled much of the district’s culture throughout the ’00s. However, on 8 June 2008 (ironically on my birthday), Tomohiro Katou ran his vehicle through Akihabara, exiting to stab people, killing seven and injuring 10 others.

Many feared that Katou’s actions would hurt Akihabara’s culture and the positivist otaku image. In reaction to the killings, Miyazaki (Tsutomu) — having received a life sentence in prison — was executed. The pedestrian mall, where much of otaku culture was making its impressions (such as the success of the Hare Haru Yukai dance from “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya”), was officially closed, ending its 35-year history (Galbraith 225).

Galbraith ends his article at this temporal point, asking like many other Japanese and worldwide fans, “If this is Akihabara, where are the otaku?” Well, two and a half years later, the Akihabara Hokoten has finally reopened. The event made national news for evening television viewers (hit the link for video in Japanese for those interested). And while the event garnered thousands of returning visitors, not much seems to be different. Otaku culture within Japan in the past two years hasn’t changed drastically; the Katou/Akihabara murders don’t seem to have made a large impact on the identity of otaku within Japan: those who like them like them, and the majority that still frown down upon them still do. But in the midst of the “pedestrian paradise” closing, while other otaku-related location-based fads have popped up — most notably Washinomiya Shrine and the Odaiba Gundam — nothing in comparison to Akihabara has necessarily mobilized otaku.

So if otaku have not been mobilized, does that mean that the Akihabara Hokoten still may have influence on the propagation of otaku culture within Tokyo, as well as throughout the world as Akihabara’s culture grows more strong with this renewed potential for 3D performance and antics? Perhaps. We cannot dismiss that over the past few years, otaku-centric fads are diminishing: see for example the closing of various maid cafes throughout the district. However, we are also seeing other novel businesses pop up, such as the much-heralded Gundam Cafe.

The most interesting development that could occur may be related to the development of the visual industry itself. With Tokyo’s new Bill 156 in place and the anime industry losing a bit of steam, how will the revelries of the pedestrian paradise influence these developments? Or vice versa? We may perhaps see anime-related projects that tie some part of the media mix strategy into further mobilizing otaku, at least within Akihabara itself. Or the government may crack down on — or at least monitor — the activities within Akihabara. We’ll just have to see how it plays out over the next year.